There are many oft repeated stories about America’s Civil War, but there is one little known incident that is seldom talked about.

It was General Orders No. 11, a document authored by then Union Army Gen. Ulysses S. Grant expelling “Jews as a class” from his war zone. The affected zone included Mississippi, Illinois and Tennessee.

The order, executed on Dec. 28, 1862, was revoked by an unhappy President Abraham Lincoln a week later, on Jan. 4, 1863.

Lincoln said he did not “like to hear a class or nationality condemned on account of a few sinners.”

That order, as well as its aftermath and the effect it had on Grant’s subsequent political career and his presidency, is the focus of the Robert Levinson Memorial Lecture on Jan. 29 at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library.

Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University and author of When General Grant Expelled the Jews, will deliver the lecture.

Sarna has done extensive research on Grant and his relationship to Jews, which he will share.

The lecture is on Jan. 29 at 5 p.m. in rooms 225-229 of the library, 150 E. San Fernando St., San Jose. It is co-sponsored by the San Jose State University History Department and Jewish Studies Program; the Burdick Military History Project; and Hillel of Silicon Valley.

Light refreshments will be served. For planning purposes, reservations are requested to Victoria.har rison@sjsu.edu.

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